In Trouble at School

 "What happened to you?" Veronika asked Billy when he and Mariah came in.

Billy had a bandage on his face.

"It was a rough day at school," Billy sighed.
"Billy got into a fight," Mariah said. "He was defending my honor!"

"Fights are not good, no matter the reason, Mariah," Veronika said.

"Billy, tell me what happened," Veronika suggested.
"Well," Billy began, "Richie and Tom were picking on Mariah during recess. They called her a word I never heard before, but it sounded ugly."

"That's right," Mariah said. "I didn't know what it meant, either, but it sounded awful the way they said it. It made me feel bad. I wanted to cry."

"Then Richie said Mariah must be dumb, because her vinyl is a dark color," Billy went on. "Mariah is one of the smartest dolls I know, and even if she weren't it isn't nice to make fun of dolls who have difficulty with things. So I punched him in the nose."

Veronika shook her head. "So he hit you back," she guessed.

"Yes," Billy agreed. "Then a teacher came and took us both to the nurse and then to the principal. The principal told us that it's wrong to hit other dolls, no matter what they have done."

"The principal is right, Billy," Veronika said. "It's good that you wanted to help Mariah, and Richie and Tom were very naughty to pick on her, but hitting doesn't solve problems."

"But I had to do something!" Billy exclaimed. "Mariah is my friend and my sister, and I know that what they were saying was unkind! I was very angry."

"It made me feel very bad," Mariah said. "I was glad Billy wanted to help."

"It's normal to feel angry sometimes, Billy," Veronika said. "It's what you do with that anger that's important." She thought for a moment. "It sounds like Tom was just going along with Richie," she suggested. "Tell me what you know about Richie."

"Well, Mariah began, "Richie doesn't do well in class. I think he doesn't do his homework and doesn't study."

"We had a spelling test today," Mariah continued. "I got all the words right, but Richie missed a lot of them. He said I must have cheated," she said, "but I didn't!"

"Of course you didn't!" Veronika exclaimed. "You are a very smart doll, and you study. You know that cheating is wrong, too, and that if you make mistakes on a test it helps you find out what you need to work on."

"Then why would he say that I cheated and that he knew I must be dumb because my vinyl is dark?" Mariah wanted to know.

"Sometimes dolls are naughty to get attention or to make themselves feel better when they don't think they are good enough," Veronika replied. "Some dolls are so unhappy and afraid that they have to believe they are better than others because of the way they look, like the color of their vinyl."

"That's very sad," said Billy.
"It is sad," Veronika agreed. "We need to help dolls who feel bad about themselves by setting a good example for them. So, Billy, what do you think you could have done when you found the boys picking on Mariah?" Veronika asked.

Billy thought for a minute. He looked at Mariah. "Maybe I should have just shown that Mariah was my friend," he suggested. "I could have asked her to help me study for the next spelling test. I missed two of the words."

"That's a very good idea, Billy, because it shows them than you know Mariah is a good student," Veronika said.
"Then we could have walked away together," Mariah suggested.

"You could do that, but you don't need to walk away unless you want to, Mariah," Veronika said. "I think they want to get attention and make you feel bad. If you stay where you are but ignore them and don't let them get you into a fight or argument, you will do more good. Both of you could pretend you didn't hear the bad things they said, even though they might have said even worse things to you both, because you were spoiling their fun. You would be setting a good example of how to treat other dolls and showing them that they couldn't make you be naughty, too."

"Remember that Monday was a holiday?" Veronika went on. "It was the day each year when we honor a great man named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He taught us not to give in to mean people, but not to fight back by hitting, either. He said, 'Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.' If you are kind to dolls who are mean to you, they don't enjoy being mean so much. They might even begin to respect you."

"Would Richie and Tom start being nice, then?" Billy asked.

"That would be up to them," Veronika explained. "We can't make others be nice. They have to learn that on their own, but we can help by setting a good example. Besides, when you set a good example for other dolls, you will feel better about yourself."
"One thing still worries me, though," Mariah said, looking down at her hands. "Does the color of a doll's vinyl mean they are smarter or dumber? I don't know how that works."

"Well," Veronika said, "dolls can be smarter or not as smart, because we are all different, but it has nothing to do with what you look like. We can be good at some things and not as good at others. Life experiences also change us, so we learn to use our abilities or we don't. A lot of it is up to us. The important thing is to be the best Mariah and Billy that you can be."
"Now I feel bad that I hit Richie," Billy said. "Now I feel sorry for him instead of hating him."

"I feel sorry for them both," Mariah said. "Tom went along with Richie, and he shouldn't have. Why did he do that? I wonder if he feels bad about himself, too. I'm sorry I hated them."

"What you're feeling is guilt, because you didn't know they are unhappy. What do you suppose you can do with that feeling?" Veronika asked.
"Maybe I can tell Richie I'm sorry I hit him," Billy answered.
"Maybe we can be nice to Richie and Tom," Mariah suggested.
"You are both very smart dolls," Veronika said, getting up. "You learn from your mistakes, and you try to be the best dolls that you can be. It sounds like you have a good plan! Now you must be pretending to be hungry. Let's go have a snack."

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily of London

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz or Classic Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to a charity that supports pediatric cancer, such as CURE Childhood Cancer or St. Baldrick's Foundation.
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM Pacific Time.

Copyright © 2019, 2024 by Peggy Stuart

Brown Dolls?

Mariah had the feeling that someone was looking at her. Staring at her, in fact. She turned her head. "Hi, Pippa," she said.

"Hi, Mariah," Pippa said, continuing to stare.

"Do you need something?" Mariah asked.

"I think you're very pretty," Pippa said, "and I was wondering why your vinyl is brown. None of the rest of us has brown vinyl."

"It's for the same reason," Mariah explained, "that we're all different. Real children are different from each other, and some real children look like me."

"Do some real children look like me?" Pippa asked.

"Of course," Mariah replied, "and some real children will never grow to be as big as others, even though they will grow, and we don't. You're small because some real children stay small."

"Why do we have to look like real children?" Pippa asked.

Mariah had to think about that. "Well," she began, "I think it's so they can pretend we are real children. We're here to teach them how to look after others and how to be kind and get along with each other."

"We give children a safe way to have dangerous adventures," Mariah continued, "by pretending."

"But," Pippa asked, "why do real children come in different colors?"

Mariah thought for a moment. "Children," she said finally, "usually look a lot like their parents. If both parents have dark skin and brown eyes, then they usually do, too. Human people come in different colors like dogs, cats and cows."

"But why do they come in different colors," Pippa wanted to know. She was not satisfied with Mariah's answer.

Mariah was stumped. That means she wasn't sure she knew how to answer that question. She turned to Mandy. "That's a good question," she said. "Mandy, do you know?"

Mandy knows a lot of things, and if she doesn't know something she knows how to look it up and where to get correct information. "Yes," she said. "I read about it. It's interesting. You see, the first human people all lived in one part of the world. When there got to be a lot of them, some of them moved away to live somewhere else, where there was more food and more room to have a home," she explained. "This happened many times over many thousands of years," she said, "and finally there were people all over the world."

"After many generations (jen-uh-RAY-shuns)," Mandy continued, "(a generation is a like a lifetime), after many generations of being far away from those other human people, their children began to look slightly different from those in other parts of the world in some ways, like skin and eye color, but still very much like the others who lived near them." Mandy moved her glasses to the top of her head. "They were still human people inside, but their outsides started to look different," she explained.

Then Mandy paused and thought for a moment, remembering what she had read. "Human people who lived where there was very little sun gradually had lighter skin, because their bodies needed to take in the sun. Human people who lived where there was lots of sun gradually had darker skin, to protect their skin, because too much sun can be dangerous to real people."

"Are human people like plants, then?" Mariah asked. "Can they use the sun to make their own food?"

"Sort of," Mandy said, "but only a little bit. They need the sun so their bodies can make something called Vitamin D (VITE-a-min D), but they still need to eat, because they need more than just Vitamin D. Too much sun, though, is dangerous. Light-skinned human people, especially those with red hair and freckles, like me, need to be careful, because they can get sunburned if they get too much sun. Sunburn is painful and can damage the skin. That's why they use protective lotions on their skin if they have to be out in the sun more than is good for them."

"This is interesting," Pippa said. "Why do all of us have light-colored vinyl and Mariah has dark brown vinyl? Are there fewer human children in the world who look like Mariah?"

Mariah wanted to know this, too.

"No," Mandy began, "There are lots and lots of human children who look like Mariah, but all of us, including Mariah, were made by a doll company in a country where there used to be only light-skinned people." 

"Today," Mandy continued, "human people go everywhere and can live anywhere, and they can get their Vitamin D from pills, so there are a lot of human people living there who have darker skin, and many who look like Mariah, but still most people there have lighter skin. Some have dark hair and brown eyes, but others have lighter hair and eyes, too, like you, Pippa."

Mariah and Pippa listened carefully. They wanted to remember what they heard.

"Well," Mandy went on, "most of the dolls made by the company that made us look like most of the children who live in their country. The company sold most of their dolls right there, and children like to have dolls who look like them."

"That's true of us, too," Mariah added. "The first year I was here, I asked Santa for a doll that looked like me!"

"Children also like dolls who look different from them," Mandy said, "because differences are interesting, but usually they want a doll who looks at least something like themselves first."

"Doll companies," Mandy explained, "make dolls to sell, not just because they think it's fun. If they can sell more dolls that look like you and me, Pippa, they make more of them."

"That makes Mariah very special," Pippa pointed out. 

"True," Mandy agreed, "but Mariah is very special for other reasons, too, just as you are."

"You know," Mariah said, "if you think about it, everyone in our doll family is special in some different way, but we're all special together, as well. We get to teach things to lots of children, and maybe some grownups, too."

The three dolls thought about that.

"Let's tell The Writer we're glad we're in the stories," Pippa suggested.

Mandy laughed. "I think she knows," she said. "At least she does now."

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta
Marmalade: Purrrfect Cats from KTL

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Author's page on Amazon. 

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Image on Mariah's yellow T-shirt used with permission, from Free To Be Kids, where human-size shirts with this image are available.

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Copyright © 2021, 2024 by Peggy Stuart